Muhammad Dawud Saifullah

Head of AI and Executive Director, Technology, Risk and Cybersecurity

KPMG in Malaysia

Muhammad Dawud Saifullah leads the AI and cybersecurity practices at KPMG in Malaysia. He advises boards and management on AI governance, cyber and technology risk, and data protection.

His career spans more than twenty-five years across software engineering, information security consulting, Big Four assurance, internal audit and executive security roles. Sixteen of those years were in telecommunications operators. He was Chief Information Security Officer at Maxis and at Celcom Axiata, and Chief Internal Auditor at Robi Axiata in Bangladesh, reporting to the board audit committee.

Muhammad Dawud Saifullah

Advisory focus

AI governance

Board oversight of AI. AI governance frameworks and operating models. AI adoption programmes for firms and financial institutions. The technical controls: guardrails, model evaluation, policy-as-code and governance of AI agents. Frameworks used: ISO/IEC 42001, the NIST AI Risk Management Framework and Malaysia's National Guidelines on AI Governance and Ethics.

Cyber and technology risk in regulated sectors

Bank Negara Malaysia's Risk Management in Technology and outsourcing policy documents. The Securities Commission's Guidelines on Technology Risk Management. Audits of national critical information infrastructure under the Cyber Security Act 2024.

Board readiness

Cyber crisis simulations and tabletop exercises for boards and executive committees. Incident response playbooks. Director training on AI and cyber.

Assurance and measurement

Risk and control self-assessment. ISO/IEC 27001, PCI DSS and personal data protection programmes. Cyber risk indicators for board reporting.

Emerging technology

Security of AI systems, and AI applied to security operations. Governance and control of agentic AI, where systems act rather than answer. Digital money and tokenised assets under Malaysian regulation. Post-quantum cryptography readiness. Technology risk in large platform migrations.

Experience

2024 to date

KPMG in Malaysia

Head of AI and Executive Director, Technology, Risk and Cybersecurity

2017 to 2024

Maxis

Head, Cybersecurity Management (Chief Information Security Officer)

2016

Celcom Axiata

Head of Technology and Network, Home Business Unit

2014 to 2016

Robi Axiata, Dhaka

Chief Internal Auditor

2008 to 2014

Celcom Axiata

Head of IT Security and Systems Infrastructure

2006 to 2008

PricewaterhouseCoopers Malaysia

Senior Manager, Systems and Process Assurance

2000 to 2006

MYSEQ, UEM Group, Intel

Information security consulting and software engineering

Credentials

CISSP

Certified Information Systems Security Professional

ISC2

CISA

Certified Information Systems Auditor

ISACA

CISM

Certified Information Security Manager

ISACA

CBCP

Certified Business Continuity Professional

DRI International

ISO/IEC 27001

Lead Auditor, information security management systems

PECB

Ts.

Professional Technologist

Malaysia Board of Technologists

Education

B.Eng (Hons), Computer and Information Systems

International Islamic University Malaysia

Graduate Diploma in Education

Queensland University of Technology

Executive programmes

Stanford School of Engineering; Stanford Graduate School of Business; University of Chicago Booth School of Business

Contact

Messages and connection requests through LinkedIn. Executive profile available as a PDF.

LinkedIn Download profile (PDF)